UK HealthCare to Connect Hospitals to Providers Across Kentucky With the Allscripts Electronic Health Record and Practice Management Solution

CHICAGO and LEXINGTON, Ky., Feb. 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- UK HealthCare, the patient care operations of University of Kentucky, will deploy the Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) Electronic Health Record and Practice Management solution to help its team of 6,000 physicians, nurses, pharmacists and health care providers enhance the quality of patient care, improve patient communications, and better manage the cost of care delivery.

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The ambulatory systems will be integrated with UK HealthCare's existing Sunrise Enterprise™ acute care Electronic Health Record, enabling caregivers in the health system's three hospitals and more than 80 specialty clinics collaborate for a team approach to patient care.  UK HealthCare, an award-winning tertiary clinical care and research health system, will upgrade to the Sunrise Enterprise™ version 5.5 suite that includes Helios by Allscripts™, an industry-defining open architecture platform designed to promote enhanced exchange of data between disparate software systems while lowering total cost of ownership.

"Deploying Allscripts for our faculty providers and connecting them to our inpatient health records system is a critical strategic imperative for UK HealthCare that will let us realize the full benefit of having one patient record across the continuum of care," said Dr. Michael Karpf, Executive Vice President for Health Affairs at the University of Kentucky. "Above all, expanding our partnership with Allscripts will help us advance our mission of providing excellent, cost effective care to our patients while supporting our mission as an academic medical center."

UK HealthCare First in Nation to Earn Federal Incentives

The agreement with Allscripts positions UK HealthCare's physicians to qualify for federal EHR incentive payments under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA). To qualify, hospitals and physicians must submit data to Medicare and Medicaid demonstrating their "Meaningful Use" of the technology, which automates many clinical tasks, minimizing human error, and connects caregivers to each other and to stakeholders including labs, pharmacies, insurers and patients.

In January, UK HealthCare became the first hospital in the nation to receive ARRA incentive payments for the Medicaid portion of the program, which requires that a hospital have in place an acute care EHR certified for the ARRA program by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC).  All Allscripts Electronic Health Records have been so certified.

Tim Tarnowski, UK HealthCare's Chief Information Officer, commented, "Our faculty providers were impressed that Allscripts combined high levels of functionality with an intuitive, customizable user interface that lets them work the way they want to work. As a health system, we've been impressed with the performance of Sunrise across our inpatient setting, and we're excited about the power of the combined inpatient and ambulatory EHR to improve the care we provide patients in our communities."

Integrated Solution will Contribute to Clinical Excellence

Carol Steltenkamp, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, noted that "having all of a patient's clinical information available on a give-and-take basis for our providers, no matter whether it originated with their primary care physician or the intensive care unit, is a huge contribution to clinical excellence."  

Dr. Steltenkamp added, "As an academic medical center, it's our job to teach the physicians of the future and they need to learn on systems like this that not only provide visibility to all elements of a patient's health but also alert them to clinical best practices."

UK HealthCare will deploy the Allscripts Clinical Quality Solution™ (CQS), which delivers real-time clinical decision support information to physicians, improving their ability to proactively manage chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure. CQS retrieves data from the Electronic Health Record and practice management system to automate the quality reporting requirements of government and payer-funded "pay-for-quality" programs.

Glen Tullman, Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts, said the agreement with UK HealthCare is yet another example of the power of the company's integrated acute, ambulatory and post-acute solution offering.

"UK HealthCare, one of the leading academic medical systems in the nation, understands the importance of connecting physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals in every care setting to the latest patient information and best practices," said Mr. Tullman. "We are committed to helping UK HealthCare further improve the quality and cost of the care they provide by delivering one patient record that lets their world-class providers collaborate across transitions in care for a more effective team approach to patient health."

UK HealthCare facilities include the 473-bed UK Chandler Hospital, Kentucky Children's Hospital, UK Good Samaritan Hospital, UK HealthCare East, Kentucky Clinic, Markey Cancer Center, and Gill Heart Institute.

About UK HealthCare

Established in 1957, UK HealthCare encompasses all of the patient care and clinical facilities, programs and activities of the University of Kentucky. The physicians, residents, staff and students take pride in achieving excellence in patient care, education, research and community service. UK HealthCare draws upon the clinical expertise of the faculty in all six colleges in its academic medical center —Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, Health Sciences, Dentistry and Public Health—to advance patient care. For more information, see www.ukhealthcare.uky.edu.

About Allscripts

Allscripts (NASDAQ: MDRX) provides innovative solutions that empower all stakeholders across the healthcare continuum to deliver world-class outcomes. The company's clinical, financial, connectivity and information solutions for hospitals, physicians and post-acute organizations are the essential technologies that enable a connected community of health. To learn more about Allscripts, please visit www.allscripts.com, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Forward-Looking Statements

Allscripts:

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Statements regarding future events or developments, our future performance, as well as management's expectations, beliefs, intentions, plans, estimates or projections relating to the future are forward-looking statements with the meaning of these laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, some of which are outlined below. As a result, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what impact they will have on our results of operations or financial condition.

Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include, among other things: the possibility that the expected synergies, efficiencies and cost savings of the merger with Eclipsys Corporation ("Eclipsys") will not be realized, or will not be realized within the expected time period; potential difficulties or delays in achieving platform and product integration and the connection and movement of data among hospitals, physicians, patients and others; the risk that the Allscripts and Eclipsys businesses will not be integrated successfully; competition within the industries in which we operate; failure to achieve certification under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act could result in increased development costs, a breach of some customer obligations and could put us at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace; the volume and timing of systems sales and installations, the length of sales cycles and the installation process and the possibility that our products will not achieve or sustain market acceptance; the timing, cost and success or failure of new product and service introductions, development and product upgrade releases; competitive pressures including product offerings, pricing and promotional activities; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; undetected errors or similar problems in our software products; the outcome of any legal proceeding that has been or may be instituted against us; compliance with existing laws, regulations and industry initiatives and future changes in laws or regulations in the healthcare industry, including possible regulation of our software by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; the possibility of product-related liabilities; our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel; the implementation and speed of acceptance of the electronic record provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; maintaining our intellectual property rights and litigation involving intellectual property rights; risks related to third-party suppliers and our ability to obtain, use or successfully integrate third-party licensed technology; and breach of ours security by third parties. See our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended May 31, 2010 and other public filings with the SEC for a further discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties applicable to our business. The statements herein speak only as of their date and we undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statement whether as a result of new information, future events or changes in expectations.

University of Kentucky Disclaimer:

The University of Kentucky is a public institution of higher learning established by acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The opinions expressed herein are the personal opinions of the persons quoted and do not constitute an endorsement of the University of Kentucky.

SOURCE Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc.